Kickstarter Backer Achievement Blocking 100% Completion

[Jerich]

After playing for way too much time, I am finally at 30/31 achievements. Unfortunately, I am blocked from 100% completion by an unachievable Kickstarter backer achievement. This is not the end of the world, but it is slightly annoying and IMHO bad achievement design. Please add a way to unlock it. I would be willing to purchase a $20.00 (or even $50.00) DLC that only unlocked this achievement if it was available (Note: I realize that I could buy a key off of eBay for $50.00, but I would rather support the company directly).

I understand that you are constrained by promises you made in the campaign that the achievement would be "Kickstarter Only." That being said, I believe most Kickstarter supporters would forgive you if you added a DLC option to get the achievement. After all, I preordered this game as soon as I saw it on Steam and paid much more than the lowest level Kickstarter backer. I would be happy to support future games by donating if you give me the opportunity.

If nothing else, please allow me to unlock the achievement by participating in a future obsidian kickstarter campaign.

Thank you,
Jerich


P.S. There really should be achievements for doing the following:

• Finishing all companion quests.
  
• Aligning with the three factions across multiple play-throughs.
  
• Completing 95% or so of the side-quests in a single play-through.

These achievements seem glaringly absent.

[Batbro]

Name a person you are "competing" with.

Name ONE PERSON besides yourself who will care whether or not you have this specific achievement.

[ColeTrain1034]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

And even if you were competing with your imaginary friend for achievements, I think this is one achievement they'd let slide, plus they likely didn't get either.

Hahahaha. I just love the idea of an imaginary friend who's like, "Nah bro, it's alright. I didn't back them either. "

[Broso]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Yeah I'll take that. I honestly just don't get it. But then again, I got more important things to worry about like paying bills and taxes, work, feeding myself, etc so i just don't get the worrying about a number next to my virtual account associated with video games.

It must be nice to have that much luxury that that's what constitutes a problem in your life.

It did bother you enough to participate in this discussion.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Virsalus:

Competing for completion. Being able to achieve more than other players. Unreachable achievements just do not belong in this system.

Funny.

Once you're missing only the backer achievement, there is nothing else left when comparing with other players.

[ColeTrain1034]

What confuses me is that about 85% of the achievement chasers on this discussion all have private accounts...why care so much if no one can see it? Not a criticism, I'm actually curious.

[Felipe]

Originally posted by Rajhans:

Originally posted by Felipe:

And, how can I get that? I mean, I barely hoovered my eyes on some pages but didn't found a way to do this. Could you clarify?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=852029541

Haven't tried yet, but as soon as I do, I'll come back to thank you

[Felipe]

Originally posted by Batbro:

Achievements are, ostensibly, achievements. Things you accomplished. You didn't back the game, so why do you want an achievement for it? Is that not cheating? Feels against the spirit of an achievement-hunter to me.

Why are you collecting achievements if you don't care about what you had to do to achieve them? Are you doing this for the feeling of accomplishment, or just for the meaningless increase in a % number?

What is the point in collecting an achievement you didn't earn? It gives no material reward, in-game or elsewhere. The only thing it gives is the satisfaction of the game recognizing your accomplishment. If you didn't accomplish anything, why do you want or need it?

That is the problem: You can't achieve it, never, if you had not known the game before. Achievements must be achieveable, that's why people collect them. If developers keep putting anything they want in games, they could totally say something like "achievement for giving a billion bucks for the developers" and you won't say 'hey, that's something I can do' because most people will work their whole life and not make that much.

The whole point of achievements are: developers found milestones that you went to in order to finish the game. I think achievements you get for going to a specific part of the game are nice. Achievements for, for example, killing less than a specific number of people in the game, or for being able to complete something huge, those achievements are cool and make you feel accomplished. The super impossible achievement in MK that you would have to play like 10 thousand hours for that? That is crazy, but achieveable. This achievement is not, and that is the whole point of it.

I do not think they should let us who didn't back the game have it, I just think they should change it for a badge or something inside the game, not an achievement. Idk, 'if you backed the game you get 10% extra xp of anything' and put that as optional, or give you godlike abilities if you so want to, it doesn't matter. Make achievements in a way everybody could achieve them if they put some effot into that, not punish people for not doing. Of course Obsidian knows that know because their new game have the exact said thing, a badge for the backers, not an achievement.

Originally posted by Infinite Pudding:

Are people really that into achievments? I totally ignore them XD

I wasn't up until I played UnEpic. That game made me grind my teeth and say "ok, so you want to see if I can do it? I'll totally do it". That was awesome, I always say I hate that game but I finished it like 7 times to get all achievements.

Originally posted by Virsalus:

Then you don't understand collectors at all.

He doesn't. The main goal for a collector is to get something nobody else has, but that they could get. Collectors trade things, not like achievements. There are as many achievements as there are people hunting or grinding for them, but not that one. Not that silly little backers achievement.

Originally posted by Batbro:

Originally posted by Virsalus:

These are by design meant to be something people can compete against for. But as this was a timed exclusive from before the game even was released how could you consider it a fair competition to begin with?

What competition? Who are you competing with? For what? What will you win? Will this backer-achievement be a potential tiebreaker in this imaginary competition?

I actually compete with three friends for who gets more achievements in games we play together. We usually find games we all like and try to see who get the hardest ones first, and we once in a while challenge each other with sort of a prize for the one who made it first.

Originally posted by Batbro:

THERE IS NO COMPETITION. You have no rivals. No one is tracking and comparing your achievements against each other and declaring one of you the victor. This whole conceit is exactly as made-up and in-your-head as the importance you give this achievement.

Literally no one except YOU cares about your achievements, and even in the improbable hypothetical that they did, a backer-exclusive achievement would be the absolute LEAST important of them, especially in a game featuring such far-more-impressive accomplishments like Triple Crown Solo or The Ultimate.

You are not, that doesn't mean other people aren't. People on Steam aren't always saying games are meant to be played by all? Well, there you have it. The single fact that there are people here saying to you that they compete and see it as a competition, means that they are. You don't agree, go on youtube and look for the guys who plays for achievements. There are hundreads of them, it's their thing and the same way people waste their time watching youtubers play games (I've done that), they waste their times watching people get freakin' hard achievements.

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Yeah I'll take that. I honestly just don't get it. But then again, I got more important things to worry about like paying bills and taxes, work, feeding myself, etc so i just don't get the worrying about a number next to my virtual account associated with video games.

It must be nice to have that much luxury that that's what constitutes a problem in your life.

So nice of you to play the good old ' I'm and adult on Steam, children-peasants'. Don't think my deceased parents are the ones feeding be and paying for my games. Or feeding my children or paying my bills. If you had the time to read and participate on the topic, guess what, you have that kind of luxury aswell.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Felipe:

That is the problem: You can't achieve it, never, if you had not known the game before.

As pointed out before, what some Steam users have achieved is that they have supported the development of the game through the kickstarter campaign. All that has been necessary is to learn about that campaign and decide to become a backer - and that is their achievement. It's an award for those people, because they have contributed a bit to making Pillars of Eternity possible.

Yes, one can think about alternative rewards. Such as ingame items for backers, similar to the items for people who had preordered the game.

Originally posted by Felipe:

I actually compete with three friends for who gets more achievements in games we play together. We usually find games we all like and try to see who get the hardest ones first, and we once in a while challenge each other with sort of a prize for the one who made it first.

This single achievement doesn't make your private competition impossible - especially not if all of you haven't backed the kickstarter campaign. There are 47 other achievements for each of you. What do you do, if all of you manage to unlock those 47? And even if all of you have unlocked the 47, one of you may have achieved more because of having unlocked The Ultimate with a Cipher while the others have done it with a different class.


What do you gain from cheating, if loading a backer's savegame to unlock the backer achievement? Will your friends do the same to maintain parity?

[Broso]

Just think about it this way. You could go to great lengths to achieve something as insane as The Ultimate and you would still be denied 100% completion just because you didn't back the KS campaign. It's just stupid.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Virsalus:

It's just stupid.

That's all?

Unconvincing - and your Steam profile is private, too, so you don't even show others how you've played the game.

Originally posted by Virsalus:

something as insane as The Ultimate

It isn't insane. And there's another problem. Some people have unlocked some solo achievements early while the still implemented different rules that made some characters much more powerful and some enemies easy to defeat. Nowadays, players can look up various walkthroughs, guides and even find experience reports on various solo runs.

[Broso]

How does one problem with the achievement system change anything about the matter at hand?

[Gregorovitch]

I bet Deadfire won't have a backer achievement. I bet they haven't removed the backer achievement for this game purely becasue they promised the backers they'd get it so it's like a contract and they feel they can't break it.

Personally I don't care about it but I feel sorry for non-backer achievement hunters who simply can't by definition get a full set for this game. I think Obsidian probably do too now, reaslise they made a big whoopsie over this and will never do it again.

[Batbro]

Originally posted by Felipe:

I actually compete with three friends for who gets more achievements in games we play together. We usually find games we all like and try to see who get the hardest ones first, and we once in a while challenge each other with sort of a prize for the one who made it first.

And in these competitions, would you or any of your friends count a backer-exclusive achievement as a potential tiebreaker? Because if so, I would call that a flaw within your competitive ruleset, not the game.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

From the global achievement stats:

6.8% backers, including false ones who find and load a backer's savegame
0.5% completed a Path of the Damned mode game
0.2% finished Triple Crown Solo
less found it interesting to do the solo runs including The White March

There are way too many non-backers, who don't care about any of those achievements. And from the 6.8% backers, many got more thrills from supporting the kickstarter campaign than from playing the game often enough on PotD mode to get all the achievements. Not even The White March is popular enough because of various factors, such as being extra DLC to pay for instead of being included for free - but it is a strict requirement for some of the achievements.

[Felipe]

Originally posted by Batbro:

Originally posted by Felipe:

I actually compete with three friends for who gets more achievements in games we play together. We usually find games we all like and try to see who get the hardest ones first, and we once in a while challenge each other with sort of a prize for the one who made it first.

And in these competitions, would you or any of your friends count a backer-exclusive achievement as a potential tiebreaker? Because if so, I would call that a flaw within your competitive ruleset, not the game.

It is the same thing as in football games. I don't like it and don't understand the rules, but the diferences between genres of championshiops and cups, the fact that every-so-often the teams change their players, none of this matters, what matters are the titles. Between me and my friends, we compete for games we all have and, if one of us get a backer achievement, even if the others didn't knew abou tit, he would still be with one more achievement and braging about it, and that is the fun about achievements with friends: you brag about things you managed to do that they didn't. This achievement is like the pay-to-win games we hate so much: only those who paid - early - got it.